Yes It happened to me. I never thought it would. I lost confidence for everything during a couple of months. Nothing. Zero. Nada. Well, not everything, at least activities that involved other people like sports, music and work (i.e. everything...). How does it feel like? it feels like you become a shadow. You don't want to be loud or visible, you want to let the moment pass. When you attempt something you prefer going soft and easy, stay on the safe zone, just trying to not screw it up, or hoping others won't notice. It sucks.
For example, in music, more specifically playing guitar with my band, when I had to make some fills for a song I just forgot the exact notes so it wouldn't be accurate. My guitar was in tune according to the tuner, but not in-tune with the other instruments, at least for 1/8th of a tone, just a tiny bit, but it sounded awful, like our ears got pierced and everyone had that tone difference bluetoothed to their inner ear. Great, my guitar just broke down, so I will just sit here and wait for the next song.
So we are going to play another song. Is the chorus 2 bars or 4 bars? is this the part where I have to play? or the drums come in? lets go, 1,2,3,4 (everybody plays... not me, I go in 5). My chorus effect is too bright so I will just tone it down and remove the treble. Now the guitar is barely audible against the other guitarist. Definitely the problem is my monitor, I cannot hear myself. If I had just known from the beginning, not after the gig. But it's over now, and things are finished.
Lets play golf, maybe here I can score better results. Here I am one of the top players of our group. Wait, this 3 feet putt ... should I hit hard or soft? Never mind, its gone past the hole farther than it was before. Now lets go back softer. Nice touch Mary, just barely moved it. Lets hit the driver in the next hole. But I will do a soft swing to secure the impact zone. But I swing so soft I mess the syncof the swing hence the ball goes into beautiful soft slice ending up in the bushes. At least it was soft, it didn't go out of bounds.
How do you fix this? It takes a couple of days. The first thing is to realize that you have lost your confidence. Once you have this in sight, take 10 to 15 minutes every morning to meditate. Just organize your thoughts and ideas, put them in place, set your brain in a balance and stability by breathing and focusing on inhaling and exhaling. Think about previous experiences where times got though but you still managed to move forward. Remember your accomplishments and achievements, and how you got to be where you are. Be thankful where are you right now. If it helps, make a list of your accomplishment (at work, in life, at your hobbies, with friends, etc) and feel good about it.
The next step is not let people bring you down. When someone tells you negative comments, just ignore them and reinforce your believes, what you have been working on your morning meditations and on your activities. Remember there are 2 types criticism: you should be open to constructive criticism and reject destructive criticism. To give you an example, a constructive criticism is when you need to listen to what someone tells you to improve and it's up to you to work for it, while a negative or destructive criticism is just an opinion or bullying that no matter what you do you cannot change, so ignore these and reject them.
Finally, the difference between a confident person and insecure on is attitude. Basically how you face problems, challenges, and how often you exit your comfort zone willing to learn, explore and stretch your limits and boundaries. You have to be bold to move forward, and you have to be ready to leave things behind such as thoughts, fears and other noise that gets in your head. Expect to make mistakes (read my post called FAIL TO RISE) and with open mind detect why you failed and make corrections. The critical part to overcome a confidence problem is detect and correct. Have you ever experienced episodes like mine, where you feel everything is going south? Please share and comment below!
